To help put an end to the lies...

[Bubba]

I have heard people say that Obama won't recite the Pledge of Allegiance or put his hand on his heart. Well, that is wrong. This should put an end to those rumors.

YouTube Video

[Justoo]

There are those who will insist that it was doctored or set up in some fashion. You may be able to correct reasonable folks, but there will always be those that will only believe what they want to.

[Highwayman]

I don’t know anyone that is paying any attention to Obama’s habits regarding the Pledge or the national anthem these days. Most folks are more concerned about this political armature’s proposed foreign policies.

David Miliband has raised questions over Barack Obama’s policy on Iran, which officials in Washington and Europe fear threatens to undermine the tough stance adopted by the West towards Tehran over recent years.

The Foreign Secretary, on his visit to the US this week, has held talks with all three presidential campaigns, including those of Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

But when he met Mr Obama’s team of foreign policy advisers on Wednesday, Mr Miliband is understood to have queried the presumptive Democratic nominee’s declared willingness to meet leaders from rogue states such as Iran.

Times Online

With Iraq fading as an election issue in the United States, Iran is moving up to replace it. For much of the past week, the three remaining candidates for the presidency played rhetorical ping-pong on the subject.
However, none seemed quite sure what the problem was, let alone what the solution might be.

Only Senator Barack Obama, the likely Democrat nominee, offered something concrete: If elected, he would invite his Iranian counterpart President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for unconditional talks.

This is what Obama said at a press conference: "Preconditions, as it applies to a country like Iran, for example, was a term of art. Because this administration has been very clear that it will not have direct negotiations with Iran until Iran has met preconditions that are essentially what Iran views, and many other observers would view, as the subject of the negotiations; for example, their nuclear program."

Talking without preconditions would require the US to ignore three resolutions passed unanimously by the United Nations' Security Council, making a set of demands from the Islamic Republic.


Before starting his unconditional talks with Ahmadinejad, would Obama present a new resolution at the Security Council to cancel the three that he Islamic Republic president does not like? Or, would Obama act in defiance of the UN, thus further weakening the authority of the Security Council?

The preconditions that Ahmadinejad does not like and Obama promises to ignore were not set by President George W Bush.


They were decided after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported the Islamic Republic to be in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and, acting in accordance with its charter, referred the issue to the Security Council.

Dismissing the preconditions as irrelevant would mean snubbing America's European allies plus Russia and China, all of whom participated in drafting and approving the resolutions that Ahmadinejad does not like.

Such a move would make a mockery of so-called "multilateral diplomacy" which the Bush administration is supposed to have ignored.

Asharq Alawsat